Re: Fluorescent Bulbs Are Known to Zap Domestic Tranquillity; Energy-Savers a Turnoff for Wives

["Robert Green" <ROBERT_GREEN1963@xxxxxxxxx>]

"Robert L Bass" <no-sales-spam@bassburglaralarms> wrote in message
news:CL6dneoc_vMAc8jbnZ2dnUVZ_s-rnZ2d@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> > That's why it makes so much more sense to
> > catch carbon and mercury at the stack, not
> > introduce a new standard using bulbs that
> > contain one of the very substances we're
> > trying to control!
>
> You misunderstand the concept, Bobby.

No, I understand it completely.  Too completely to believe that adding more
mercury to the equation is really going to solve the pollution problem.

As I've said numerous times, the place to catch the CO2 and other pollution
is at the smokestack, not jury-rigging some secondary solution that depends
on a lot of "what ifs" that may end up as "what weren'ts." Adding mercury to
millions of small consumer items in an attempt to reduce mercury and other
pollutants emitted at several hundred power plants isn't a good idea on the
face of it.  It's power company propaganda that attempts to shift the cost
for cleanup away from them and onto us.  It is, as the article's author
said, a lightbulb version of the low-flow toilet.  The more Band-Aid-type
solutions we use, the less likely we are to seek the "tough" solutions like
scrubbers on power plant smokestacks.

> The idea isn't to require a specific bulb type
> but to move away from using wasteful ones.
> Also, although some bulbs contain a small
> amount of mercury, the power to light the
> others introduces far more mercury into the
> environment and does so in a far worse manner
> than that in the high efficiency bulbs.

It depends on where that power comes from.  I don't believe that
hydroelectric dams generate airborne mercury, nor do nuclear plants, nor
does solar, etc.  Installing scrubbers on the power sources that do emit
mercury is the right solution to the problem.  Why?  Because those small
amounts of mercury in each CFL add up when millions of bulbs get sold.
Remember that toxic spill article about a broken bulb on a carpet?  If one
broken bulb can summon the EPA, the mercury content is not the trivial thing
some people insist it is.  Another part of the "what ifs" that worries me is
who's to say what will end up being incinerated and not recycled?  CFL
proponents strike me as believing all those bulbs will be dutifully
recycled, or so it seems when they run the numbers.  I'm not that
optimistic.

> > But business has become very adept at
> > blaming John Q. Public for any problems
> > that arise.  Just listen to Big Oil whine
> > about how those pesky environmental rules
> > *forced* these price rises as they bank
> > their largest profits in history.
>
> While I agree that bug oil and the Bush
> administration have done dastardly things
> to the economy, the environment and all
> us humans, that does not mean that we as
> individuals should not do all we can to reduce
> our use of polluting energy sources.  In  fact,
> it means just the opposite.

No one I know, including me, wants to wantonly pollute the environment.  Yet
we're cast in that light repeatedly by people who either don't understand or
don't *want* to understand the true and very complex nature of the problem.
For any number of reasons, CFLs are NOT adequate substitutes for
incandescent bulbs, and ramming them down the throat of consumers who
clearly don't want them in their current state of development is a
diversionary tactic.  I tend to focus in direct solutions rather than
multiple level social-scientific predictions of how people will behave in
the future.  There's just no guarantee that if you lower people's electric
bills this year that they won't make up the difference next year.  Yet those
assumptions and more like them are an integral part of the pro-CFL
propaganda.

Do you *really* want to clean the air?  Start with the things that make it
dirty.  Coal-fired power plant smokestacks.  Direct solution.  No mumbo
jumbo magic schemes based on predictions that are likely to turn out to be
just as phony as the bulb maker's longevity claims.  CFLs are David
Stockman's "trickle down" theory of economics transmogrified into
conservationist clothing but what's trickling down this time is BS and more
mercury into landfills.

I want to barf when I hear BigOil crybabying about how those pesky laws we
forced on them are causing the shortages that drive up price.  Now they are
carping about how ethanol is going to make gasoline MORE expensive because
it's SO much trouble for them to handle, yada yada yada.  There's really
only one course of action that's going to solve the problem:  Scrub CO2 and
mercury at the stacks.

We cleaned up car exhausts (over the absolutely unrelenting protests of the
BigAutomakers who insisted the cars would be too expensive to purchase or
drive - you remember that canard, don't you?).  We can clean up power plants
if we direct our national will toward that end and not towards a stopgap
measure like mandating  CFLs.

> > <<And the people get to squint to see anything.
> > Yes, eliminating incandescent bulbs cuts down
> > on X amount of electrical use and Y amount of
> > power-plant fuel and Z amount of greenhouse-gas
> > emissions>>
>
> It's not necessary to squint.  The message is misleading.

Sorry, but my own personal experience says it is, using the N-Vision bulbs I
just bought a few months ago.  I found myself in the kitchen, squinting,
trying to read a label on a box and having to wait until the CFL warmed up
so that I could read it without a magnifier.  That would not have happened
with an incandescent bulb:  they're "instant on" devices and have rightfully
created the expectation that any replacement light source should be
similarly capable.  How about that Edison?  All this new-fangled technology
and it still can't compete on such a primitive level.

> > Looks like he's as wary as I am about calculations
> > that "prove" the excess...
>
> He says so but he offers no proof that data with which
> the scientific community overwhelmingly concurs is
> not accurate.

He documents his case exactly was well as you've documented yours.  (-:  The
"overwhelming concurrence" of the scientific community doesn't mean
something's true.  For nearly 100 years, the ENTIRE medical community
believed ulcers were caused by stress and prescribed BILLIONS of dollars
worth of useless medications to treat it.  One lone Aussie scientist in 1982
did his own research and found that ulcers were caused by bacteria.  It took
a lot of convincing over a number of years, but the scientific "concurrence"
is now quite different than it was and Australian researchers Professor
Barry Marshall and Dr Robin Warren won the 2005 Nobel Prize for Medicine as
a result:

http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/stories/2005/1474064.htm

That's just one of hundreds of "re-sets" scientists have made as new data
comes in.  The world's climate has changed drastically over the last million
years and yet there were no people here to cause it.  It just happened.
Makes you wonder if they've really got it right this time.  Read here:

http://dieoff.org/page127.htm

to discover how many times *in human history* alone that the world climate
has dramatically and rapidly shifted for reasons that could not have
possibly had anything to do with industrialization because there was none.
Just very clear fossil, ice core and dendrochronological records

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dendrochronology

of the wild swings in average temperature that occur from apparently very
natural sources.  "Analysis of bubbles in ice cores shows that at the peak
of glacial phases, CO2 was about 30% lower than during interglacial
conditions."   Hmm. Carbon dioxide fluctuating wildly and not a single power
plant in sight.  Makes you wonder.  Well, it makes *me* wonder.

This is all basically irrelevant because the solution is to scrub at the
stack and not depend on a Rube Goldberg chain of alleged savings, alleged
minimal mercury contamination, etc.  It's believing in a band-aid fairytale
that misses the main problem: Hundreds of coal-fired plants belching CO2 and
mercury into the air we breathe.  That's the problem and the solution is the
same for power plants as it was for cars and trucks:  clean up the exhaust.
Power companies just don't want to do it, that's all.  It's easier to foist
it off on us in a scheme that doesn't just double, it quintuples the price
of a light bulb.  Now *that's* a solution Big Business surely loves!  Stick
the consumer with higher prices AND the potential cost of the mercury
cleanup.  Sweet!  What CEO wouldn't like that deal?

> > electricity saved won't simply be squandered
> > elsewhere...
>
> One doesn't save up electricity to squander it elsewhere.
> It's not a bag of coins in the dresser drawer.  The more
> you use to light your home the more you contribute to
> the destruction of the atmosphere and the more oil
> Big Oil gets to sell.  When you turn off an unneeded
> light or turn down the heat an extra degree you reduce
> the total demand -- plain and simple.

You make it sound all so incredibly simple but it's not.  Peak capacity is
what we're talking about and if light bulbs are used at night when
commercial power drain is low, it may be that CFL's really have far less
benefits than advocates claim.  It may be that incandescents don't really
cause anywhere near the excess load attributed to them, either.  Why do I
doubt the veracity of those claiming to know exactly how much we'll save?
Because implicit in knowing the "green-ness" of CFL bulbs is intimate
knowledge of how the US power grid works, exactly what percent of what type
of power (nuke, hydro, coal, other) was in use at any moment as well as what
part of the total load was lighting and what type of lighting it was.

Even if you knew all that, and it's basically unknowable as a certainty,
you'd have to know other things like the real lifespan of CFL's and not the
claimed lifespan.  You might need to consider the eventual cost of taking
all those minute quantities of mercury out of the landfills if, as we did
with asbestos, we come to find out it's not just bad, but very very bad.
Big Business already knows it will be us, the consumer, and not them that
pays for the cleanup so why should they give a hoot about mercury pollution.
We, the people, will pay for it via the Superfund and some extra taxes.

The worst part is that we'll have been suckered every step of the way into
thinking that balky CFLs were the answer, and not smokestack emission
controls or solar power research initiatives or better, more efficient
tungsten or LED bulbs.

Let me make another analogy.  Ever notice how fast new, huge 12 lane
highways end up getting clogged at rush hour?  Our appetite for power
appears to be ever-growing, just like our appetite for highways.  Making
lighting cheaper doesn't guarantee a drop in electrical demand for very
long.  Plug-in hybrid cars and other new devices coming on line could eat up
all the "capacity" saved by using CFLs and guess what?  Because we chose
CFLs and not scrubbers, all that mercury and CO2 is still belching.
Mandating CFL's and thus adding a toxin like mercury is the wrong solution
to the problem.

Increasing the efficiency of lighting is great - but if, as a result, people
now spend more on bulbs that don't last as long as they claim, don't light
as well as they claim, have end-of-life recycling and greater manufacturing
costs embedded in them, don't work well with dimmers or home automation
equipment, then maybe those efficiency equations aren't telling the whole
story.  Maybe domestic tranquility isn't important to you, but the author of
the original piece thought it has value.  So do I.  A bulb that emits toxic
smoke or toxic mercury in a failure mode is NOT an improvement.  It's a step
backwards.  A pretty big one.  And all because the power industry would
rather not have to deal with emissions control and their propaganda machines
have convinced a lot of folks that's a good idea.  Well, it's not.

> > or exactly how many milligrams of mercury are going
> > to be added per cubic inch of soil by switching to CFLs.
>
> Documentation currently available shows that using more
> CFLs and lkess incandescents will result in a significant
> reduction in mercury in the food chain.

Only if you FAIL to take the correct step of scrubbing at the power plant
smokestack.  This is part of the equation that seems to be repeatedly
omitted, and with good cause.  Once you scrub, you don't need to add more
mercury in the light bulbs in some strange offset scheme.  You've fixed the
problem directly.  That's what's remarkable about this "fix."  It's like
9/11.  Want to fix the hijacked plane as missile problem?  Lock the cabin
doors.  El Al had been doing it for 20 years.  Instead, we create
bureaucracies, invent entire ways to erode our own civil liberties and spend
billions of dollars of treasure from our taxes to fight wars when the
solution was remarkably simple.  Lock the cabin doors.

The warming and pollution problem has a simple solution, too.  Scrub
emissions at the smokestacks if you want to reduce CO2 and airborne
pollutants.  Don't depend on dubious CFL bulb schemes to clean the air.

> that the
> amount and form of mercury introduced to landfills from
> used CFLs is less than atmospreric pollution from
> lighting conventional bulbs.

<sigh> Only IF you don't take the correct step of scrubbing at the power
plant
smokestack.

> It is also in a form which is
> far less likely to enter the food chain because it is largely
> contained, whereas airborne mercury goes directly into
> the food chain.  These are not chimerical ideas but hard
> facts which the author you cite chooses to ignore.

<double sigh> Only IF you don't take the correct step of scrubbing at the
power plant smokestack.

Are you detecting a pattern here?  The arguments for CFL's start to fall
apart when you consider that the only way to be SURE to eliminate the output
of mercury and CO2 into the environment is to catch it at the stack.

> > Too many unknowables to form concrete conclusions...
>
> That is not true.
>
> > particularly since personal behavior like willingness
> > to recycle is such a large element in the equations...
>
> It is not even a small element in the comparison of CFLs
> vs. incandescents.  They all end up in the landfill . . .

Speaking of "not true", that's another assumption of the sort I take issue
with.  I'll bet they don't "all" end up and the landfill and that at least a
few of those bulbs end up in incinerators.

> and they
> all use electricity which in turn burns coal which in turn
> spews mercury and lots of other noxious crap into the air.

<triple sigh> Only IF you don't take the correct step of scrubbing at the
power plant smokestack.

> We already know for a fact that using high efficiency
> bulbs will reduce atmospheric mercury.

And increase the amount of mercury going into landfills if those bulbs
contain mercury, and so far, the bulk of the bulbs proposed to solve the
problem contain that toxin.  Fixing a poison problem with another poison
isn't smart.  It's what I call anti-common sense science.

> The only unknowable
> is whether people will bother in the next 10-20 years.  It
> is without question that they will use more efficient everything
> 20 years from now as coastlines begin to move inland,
> crops fail and storms become worse and more frequent than
> anything we've seen so far.
>
> I saw an excellent ad about global warming the other night.
> It showed a middle aged man standing on a railroad track
> with a freight train approaching from behind.  He said that
> global warming isn't supposed to make a catastrophic impact
> for at least 30 more years.  He doesn't expect to be here 30
> years from now so he's not worried about it.  Before the freight
> train gets near he steps off the track and out of harm's way,
> never noticing the 5-year old girl still standing on the tracks
> behind him.

I suppose what irks me the most is that there's an automatic assumption that
if someone says they're against CFL's, they are somehow branded as someone
who doesn't give a fig about the environment.  That's patently untrue.  I
care deeply about the environment and that's precisely why I believe
replacing incandescents, that only *indirectly* cause mercury and CO2
airborne pollution with something that causes DIRECT mercury pollution is a
bad idea.  We've been mislead before by scientists who promise the next
great discovery will cure all our problems.  The latest "cure all" in
medicine, Vioxx, had to be pulled from the market when one of the indirect
results of its use as a pain killer was that it killed people, too.  Whoops!
Right until the very end they had documentation and scientific concurrences
out the ying-yang.  But it didn't make the product work safely.  In fact, a
lot of the "well known facts" Merck dispersed about Vioxx were simply bogus.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4054991

Worse still the FDA and Merck say that they don't know even know if the
increased risk of heart problems will go away after people stop taking
Vioxx.  That means lots of people may have invited Mr. Death for a visit
when all they wanted to do was soothe their aching joints.  Beware of the
promises of scientists for they are often bargains with the devil.

> The point, in case anyone misses it, is that we *might* not
> feel the impact of what we do now in our lifetimes but our
> children most assuredly will.  The question is what kind of
> world do you want to leave for your children and grand children.
>
> > Worse, still, no one seems to agree on simple things
>
> Actually, there is considerable agreement among the
> scientific community.  There are also a number of outlier
> "scientists," mostly hired by big business interests, who
> spread disinformation in hopes of staving off regulatory
> restrictions on their activities.

More importantly, there are lots of industry propagandists that try to make
us believe that the problems lie with those rotten consumers and not with
the power plants belching all that pollution.  Seems like at least a few
people have bought into that line.   As for business hating regulation,
that's untrue.  They love it so much, they help Congress write the laws.
Why?  Because that way they can tailor them to reduce competition.  Phillip
Morris has been helping the FDA regulate smoking.  Since they hold the
largest share of the market, an advertising ban would simply "lock in" their
huge slice of the market, so they're all for it.

http://www.conservativebookservice.com/products/BookPage.asp?prod_cd=c6935

Big Business also loves to deflect solutions away from themselves and onto
third parties like consumers as part of the great epidemic of cost shifting
going on in the world.  Why scrub at the stacks if you can convince people
that CFL's are going to magically make for cleaner air?  So far, they seem
to have gotten at least a few takers on that idea.  What was Exxon's first
response to Exxon Valdez oil spill?  They "unflagged" and spun off those
nasty ships and made it someone else's problem.

--
Bobby G.